Modern US Army invades Nazi Germany

Capt'n Midnight

AbusesToilets wrote: »

I am put in mind of the events of the 1st Gulf War when the US went up against the relatively modern Iraqis (in terms of hardware).

Iraqi conscripts vs. Combat hardened Germans ?

The force multiplying effects of the superior tech that the US employed was devastating in material and psychological terms. The ability to fight accurately at night is a huge advantage, which would favor the US significantly.

You have to remember that superior Germany tech was defeated by numbers in WWII , OK it's not as simple as that but there is truth in it.

While the Germans would have a huge advantage in sheer numbers, an army that size demands incredible support and resources. All of which would be hugely vulnerable to disruption by the US, in ways that weren't possible in WW2

And the US would have to invade by sea which means much longer supply lines.

During WWII there were "thousand bomber" raids. There were targeted raids on infrastructure too. In the end it was lack of raw materials that limited production most.

Look at the Korean war, the Allies had a ridiculous amount of war surplus bombers and after the initial campaigns the effect wasn't that great as the factories were moved underground.

Yes precision munitions are a multiplier. But even in Iraq and Afghanistan it was B52's dropping dumb bombs.

Could an Me163 intercept a B52 ?
Yes I know that they have very short range and are easily avoided and be a much easier target for heat seeking missiles than propellered planed but on paper they'd have the speed and altitude.

and a B52 is a rather large target, and 1940's Germany produced 20,000 88's

Jawgap

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

?....
Could an Me163 intercept a B52 ?
Yes I know that they have very short range and are easily avoided and be a much easier target for heat seeking missiles than propellered planed but on paper they'd have the speed and altitude.

and a B52 is a rather large target, and 1940's Germany produced 20,000 88's

No, the first time the GCI radars came on, they'd be eating AGM-88Es.

Likewise any aircraft coming up to meet them probably would even see the the fighters that shoot them down from distance using AMRAAMs.

I reckon the only chance would be in urban fighting, which equalise out the technological advantages the US would have.

AbusesToilets

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Iraqi conscripts vs. Combat hardened Germans ?



You have to remember that superior Germany tech was defeated by numbers in WWII , OK it's not as simple as that but there is truth in it.


And the US would have to invade by sea which means much longer supply lines.

During WWII there were "thousand bomber" raids. There were targeted raids on infrastructure too. In the end it was lack of raw materials that limited production most.

Look at the Korean war, the Allies had a ridiculous amount of war surplus bombers and after the initial campaigns the effect wasn't that great as the factories were moved underground.

Yes precision munitions are a multiplier. But even in Iraq and Afghanistan it was B52's dropping dumb bombs.

Could an Me163 intercept a B52 ?
Yes I know that they have very short range and are easily avoided and be a much easier target for heat seeking missiles than propellered planed but on paper they'd have the speed and altitude.

and a B52 is a rather large target, and 1940's Germany produced 20,000 88's

The difference in tech between the various countries in WW2 would be nowhere near that which would exist between a modern army and one from then.

The reasons the Allies needed to have such massive bombing raids was because they were so inaccurate. They couldn't generate the effects they needed with night time bombing so they switched to day time bombing and needed huge numbers to compensate for the horrible losses they suffered accordingly. I think the US would do serious damage to the German airforce on the ground with surprise night time raids any would annihilate and birds that launched.

Jawgap

AbusesToilets wrote: »

The difference in tech between the various countries in WW2 would be nowhere near that which would exist between a modern army and one from then.

The reasons the Allies needed to have such massive bombing raids was because they were so inaccurate. They couldn't generate the effects they needed with night time bombing so they switched to day time bombing and needed huge numbers to compensate for the horrible losses they suffered accordingly. I think the US would do serious damage to the German airforce on the ground with surprise night time raids and would annihilate and birds that launched.

They didn't "switch" - USAAF bombed by day, RAF bombed by night because they were following different strategies and philosophies.

Capt'n Midnight

The key technological gap is radar.

At the Battle of Leyte Gulf radar it showed up twice.

The Battle of Surigao Strait
The Japanese lost battleships Yamashiro and Fusō (largest ship lost with no survivors) and three destroyers. Mostly because US radar could detect the Japanese at longer range for torpedo attacks and shelling.


The Battle off Samar
On paper this was a walkover.

Kurita's powerful "Center Force" consisted of five battleships (Yamato, Musashi, Nagato, Kongō, and Haruna), ten heavy cruisers (Atago, Maya, Takao, Chōkai, Myōkō, Haguro, Kumano, Suzuya, Tone and Chikuma), two light cruisers (Noshiro and Yahagi) and 15 destroyers.


Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague's Task Unit 77.4.3 ("Taffy 3") consisted of Carrier Division 25 Fanshaw Bay, St. Lo, White Plains, Kalinin Bay, and Rear Admiral Ralph A. Ofstie's COMCARDIV 26 Kitkun Bay and Gambier Bay. Screening for Taffy 3 were the destroyers Hoel, Heermann and Johnston, and destroyer escorts Dennis, John C. Butler, Raymond, and Samuel B. Roberts. - none of these ships carried anything bigger than a 5" gun

One of the carriers was 10,00 tons the other's were 7,800 tons , the destroyers 2050 tons and the destroyer escorts were 1,350 tons so total weight about 60,550 tons.

Yamato and Musashi weighed over 70,000 tons each
18" guns with with a range over 2.5 times that of the Americans. They also had a 8 Knot speed advantage over the carriers, which weren't fleet carriers and weren't geared up for fending off warships.


The Japanese used optical systems for gun aiming, each battleship had a separate colour dye in it's shells.

Some of the American ships used radar fire control.

There were lots of factors , such as air attacks and submarines that whittled down the Japanese fleet, and lucky weather and poor decisions by Kurita, fever, lack of sleep and being torpedoed didn't help. Musashi was sunk by air attack en route, Yamato had to run from some torpedoes.

The Japanese weren't able to direct fire on the the US ships until they got so close that they took damage from the 5" guns.

Sand

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Iraqi conscripts vs. Combat hardened Germans ?

German conscripts actually. German conscripts trained in an armed force that grew from about 115,000 on very long term contracts in 1935 (designed to prevent building up a reserve of trained military) to a size of 4.7 million in 1939. Over 5% of the German population, counting women and children. That basically means the German military growing 41 times bigger in just over 4 years, having had little or no comparable training "experience" since the end of WWI 17 years or more before.

You cant tell me corners were not cut in terms of training and equipment quality to achieve such rapid growth. Goering himself noted that Hitler would not ask him about the quality of the bombers of the Luftwaffe, only how many bombers they had. The myth of the "combat hardened Germans" is just that, a myth. By the time the Germans had the opportunity to build up combat experience, they were scraping the barrel for manpower - enlisting children and foreign fighters to try and keep the numbers up. A large number of the "German" troops facing the Allies on D-Day were actually Ukrainians, whose combat ability and commitment were questionable at best.

What defined German success in the early period of the war was a mixture of (varying) surprise and excellent operational (if not strategic) leadership. Germany had a series of frankly fantastic generals. The problem with the theoretical exercise is that any "modern US army" force will have better equipment, better trained troops, better reconnaissance and will have leadership that will have probably studied and learned from the German generalship of WW2. So long as the modern force is large enough to be able to offer a coherent, sustainable combined arms opposition it will quite simply melt any mid 20th century opposition. The Germans went to war with the Pz I and II for example - they were parade tanks even by the standards of the time, let alone what an M1 would make of them.